Cybernetic:They seem to be operating under the delusion that the United States still has a manned space flight program.

You seem to be operating under the delusion that a manned space program means something more than political flag waving.

If you believe a manned space program is such a boon to a country, move to Russia and tell me if you still believe manned space means something. They beat the Americans in most space milestones, I don't see space enthusiasts extolling the virtues of space for Russia.

Cybernetic:They seem to be operating under the delusion that the United States still has a manned space flight program.

Ah, I was wondering how long it'd take for you to show up Debbie. True the state of manned spaceflight is not good, but its not as disastrous as you and others are proclaiming with such a ridiculous statement.

We have a space gap, it isn't the end of the world, and it isn't the first gap. It is though the first time we've had a functional manned space program despite not having a US spacecraft available to us. There are after all two US astronauts aboard ISS right this very moment, and thanks to the Russian's Soyuz spacecraft we continue to have a ride into orbit and presence aboard the International Space Station. Hopefully by 2015, 2016, or 2017 we'll have a US spacecraft capable of returning us to space without the aid of the Russian's. The last gap between Apollo-Shuttle was five years. This one could be shorter seeing as Space X already has a functional/proven spacecraft/launcher, but even if Space X doesn't get there Boeing may very well with a planned test flight of their CST-100 spacecraft in 2016 or 2017. Either way there will be a manned US spacecraft flying before 2020.

simplicimus:Why. We can't land there, so there's nothing humans than can do that an unmanned satellite can't.

Luddite. We will send a 3D printer because resources and stuff. Duh. Things really are that simple, it's just politics holding us back, just like politics held us back from going to the Moon in the first place.

bbfreak:Either way there will be a manned US spacecraft flying before 2020.

Why is this so important? Difficulty: no symbolism or appeal to romantic ideals or emotional sci-fi stuff.

They're sending the women to Venus? Not cool NASA, not cool. I mean, I know you've been a bit of a boys club since your inception, but that's no reason to launch women into the hellscape that is the Morning Star.

Quantum Apostrophe:simplicimus: Why. We can't land there, so there's nothing humans than can do that an unmanned satellite can't.

Luddite. We will send a 3D printer because resources and stuff. Duh. Things really are that simple, it's just politics holding us back, just like politics held us back from going to the Moon in the first place.

bbfreak: Either way there will be a manned US spacecraft flying before 2020.

Why is this so important? Difficulty: no symbolism or appeal to romantic ideals or emotional sci-fi stuff.

Manned space flight is less important from an astronomical research perspective, but it is very important from a technological perspective. The challenges of sending people into space and developing systems which can support and protect them provides a lot of collateral technology and pushes innovation in ways most other industries don't. In the short term and in purely astronomical terms, manned space missions have a much higher cost to value ratio than unmanned, but in the long term they typically have much higher returns. Which is not to say that unmanned missions need to be put on the back burner, they need at least equal priority. Probably greater really, but manned missions are still important.

I don't believe that. I believe space was the apex of 20th century development, not the base.

Oerath:he challenges of sending people into space and developing systems which can support and protect them provides a lot of collateral technology and pushes innovation in ways most other industries don't.

That's your opinion. The same can be said of deep-sea diving. Why don't you try living in a volcano? That'll push technology along. For what, I don't know. It's this kind of circular reasoning about space that I decry.

"We need to develop this technology for space because it will be used in space!"

Oerath:Manned space flight is less important from an astronomical research perspective, but it is very important from a technological perspective. The challenges of sending people into space and developing systems which can support and protect them provides a lot of collateral technology and pushes innovation in ways most other industries don't. In the short term and in purely astronomical terms, manned space missions have a much higher cost to value ratio than unmanned, but in the long term they typically have much higher returns. Which is not to say that unmanned missions need to be put on the back burner, they need at least equal priority. Probably greater really, but manned missions are still important.

Currently we have no technology that would make a trip to Mars anything but a one-way fatal excursion. We don't even have probes that can survive landing on Venus. Until our technology advances significantly, there's no point for manned trips to these planets. After our technology advances to that point, there's still no reason to Venus. Maybe Mars, depending on what the probes find.. The Moon makes the most sense if we want to set up a colony, if there were anything worth having there.,

Can you ever just SHUT THE FARK UP about 3D printers, and you're anti-space crusade... Do you have to farking interject in every god damn farking conversation, shiat all over it before one even starts, or just be so god damn farking annoying...

There just isn't much worth visiting in our system. They're all just deserted rocks and big balls of gas.

Lets say that we have astronauts land on Mars. They'll have spent 2 years traveling, and finally get to open the door to step on Mars. The first person to step there will just think, "I went all this way just to land in a desert?" I bet a lot of science experiments they do will just confirm that there is but rock, much like our Moon.

Can you ever just SHUT THE FARK UP about 3D printers, and you're anti-space crusade... Do you have to farking interject in every god damn farking conversation, shiat all over it before one even starts, or just be so god damn farking annoying...

SHUT THE FARK UP AND FARK OFF ALREADY!

OK, go live in space and I'll shut up about your delusions. Show me the fantastic opportunities in a deadly vacuum.

Why have you imbued a dead vacuum with so much symbolism? So much so that a little contrary opinion can set you off like that?

Quantum Apostrophe:That's your opinion. The same can be said of deep-sea diving. Why don't you try living in a volcano? That'll push technology along.

Deep sea diving probably will provide useful technologies, and is in some ways a good analog for space. Unfortunately considerably less people are interested in funding 6 month-2 year deep sea expeditions that would yield such technological results. And the volcano... well we both know what you were doing there, but honestly I don't see a lot of useful tech coming out of that. And again, no one wants to fund it.

simplicimus:Currently we have no technology that would make a trip to Mars anything but a one-way fatal excursion. We don't even have probes that can survive landing on Venus. Until our technology advances significantly, there's no point for manned trips to these planets. After our technology advances to that point, there's still no reason to Venus. Maybe Mars, depending on what the probes find.. The Moon makes the most sense if we want to set up a colony, if there were anything worth having there.,

Venus is a dead end, and there is basically no reason to go there. I mean probes might do some interesting science if they can survive, but people clearly not. And Mars is a long term objective, one which will require advances in closed systems and advanced life support systems. The development of which I think are important goals for humanity's long term development. The moon is a good starting place though. Close enough to be feasible, hostile enough to be a good testing ground.

Mankind needs to be prepared to accept the reality that there is nowhere left to explore that is both feasible and useful. This is, sadly, what I believe is the solution to Fermi's paradox: all the useful places to visit are so far away as to be unreachable. Let's face it - unless Charon is actually a frozen mass relay, we aren't going anywhere or meeting anyone.

Oerath:but honestly I don't see a lot of useful tech coming out of that. And again, no one wants to fund it.

And I don't see any useful tech coming out of yet another tin can in the upper atmosphere. Is it fun? Probably. And? So are flights in Mig-29s and I don't see the foaming at the mouth spittle about that.

Quantum Apostrophe:You and KellyX just better put away the crap you were fed as a kid and grow up.

Wow. What dreams of yours were smashed by the difficulties of reality? Just because shiat is hard doesn't mean you should just give up on it. Are you always this much of a colossal dick? Or did you just decide to take a break from the Politics tab to swing by and yell at people who disagree with you about space travel?

Myria:There just isn't much worth visiting in our system. They're all just deserted rocks and big balls of gas.

Lets say that we have astronauts land on Mars. They'll have spent 2 years traveling, and finally get to open the door to step on Mars. The first person to step there will just think, "I went all this way just to land in a desert?" I bet a lot of science experiments they do will just confirm that there is but rock, much like our Moon.

If the trip to Mars took 2 years, the crew would be dead, using current tech.

Oerath:Quantum Apostrophe: That's your opinion. The same can be said of deep-sea diving. Why don't you try living in a volcano? That'll push technology along.

Deep sea diving probably will provide useful technologies, and is in some ways a good analog for space. Unfortunately considerably less people are interested in funding 6 month-2 year deep sea expeditions that would yield such technological results. And the volcano... well we both know what you were doing there, but honestly I don't see a lot of useful tech coming out of that. And again, no one wants to fund it.

simplicimus: Currently we have no technology that would make a trip to Mars anything but a one-way fatal excursion. We don't even have probes that can survive landing on Venus. Until our technology advances significantly, there's no point for manned trips to these planets. After our technology advances to that point, there's still no reason to Venus. Maybe Mars, depending on what the probes find.. The Moon makes the most sense if we want to set up a colony, if there were anything worth having there.,

Venus is a dead end, and there is basically no reason to go there. I mean probes might do some interesting science if they can survive, but people clearly not. And Mars is a long term objective, one which will require advances in closed systems and advanced life support systems. The development of which I think are important goals for humanity's long term development. The moon is a good starting place though. Close enough to be feasible, hostile enough to be a good testing ground.

A long term stay on the moon is probably a permanent stay, due to muscle and bone loss.

I don't believe that. I believe space was the apex of 20th century development, not the base.

It wasn't the base, and in some ways it was the apex because it was a damn hard thing to do, and required a lot of technological development to succeed, but it also provided spin off technology, which was what Oerath's point was. Remote health telemetry is a great example and there are many others, including materials development, that have significantly added to non-space technologies and consumer goods. Would they have been developed otherwise? Hard to say really. Some probably would have eventually, some probably wouldn't have because space provided some unique environmental challenges. It was only after we developed technology for that purpose that other uses were found.

Which is how science works period. You're basically pushing a totally incorrect view of science and technological development, much like our Conservative government, that thinks the best science is directed R&D for commercial purposes. That is demonstrably not the case. Undirected basic science provides the base on which all innovation is built, often in unforeseen ways. As someone doing basic science and human health related science this is something I have a pretty good grasp of. Most of our medical advances rely heavily on non-directed research driven by simple curiosity.

Which is my larger point about manned space exploration. Doing science and exploring for its own sake is a valuable thing. And not everything can be done with probes and robots.

Oerath: he challenges of sending people into space and developing systems which can support and protect them provides a lot of collateral technology and pushes innovation in ways most other industries don't.

That's your opinion. The same can be said of deep-sea diving. Why don't you try living in a volcano? That'll push technology along. For what, I don't know. It's this kind of circular reasoning about space that I decry.

"We need to develop this technology for space because it will be used in space!"

Again you are off the mark. Developing technologies for surviving in space and supporting human life in that extreme habitat obviously has the direct benefit of doing what it was intended to do, but it can also have ancillary benefits in spin-off technology. This is pretty well documented. And space has a whole slew of challenges that deep sea diving doesn't. Building for immense pressure and building for a near vacuum are different. Trying to deal with debris and radiation are fairly unique environmental conditions. Especially if you are dealing with weight as a significant factor due to current launch constraints and cost.

Although developing technology and building infrastructure so that launch costs weren't as big of a factor would also be pretty useful in that regard.

Oerath: but manned missions are still important.

They just aren't. It's a cargo cult at this point. Do the thrill rides privately and move on. The Space Age is as dead as disco.

We can't do all of the science we might want to do remotely, we just can't. People still have many huge advantages over unmanned probes and robots in that regard. And exploration for its own sake isn't a bad thing.

People in the 19th century thought Mars was inhabited with an advanced civilization. It just isn't. People moved on.

Then people thought the universe was the Milky Way. Nope. People moved on.

Then people thought Venus was a lush tropical paradise. Oops. People moved on.

Then people thought we'd build these enormous technological totem poles in the sky because technology.

I'd argue most of those weren't necessarily scientific thought, many of them were speculative from amateur astronomers and science fiction writers.

Oerath:What dreams of yours were smashed by the difficulties of reality?

Yours.

Oerath:Just because shiat is hard doesn't mean you should just give up on it.

That can be said about anything. It's pretty difficult to make a passenger jet out of uranium. You should give up on that not because it's hard, but because it's stupid, and even if you could you'd just kill everyone. See?

Tell it to the universe that has given us limited materials and energy sources. No one's going anywhere. And it's not my fault.

Oerath:Or did you just decide to take a break from the Politics tab to swing by and yell at people who disagree with you about space travel?

I think that if you were objective, you'd realize the only person yelling here is a Space Nutter. I'm still wiping the spittle from inside my monitor.

And pointing out reality is being dickish now?

There is no truth to the old canard of space being this source of technological wonders and better societies. If people believed that, you'd move to Russia or China.

There is nothing to be gained by having a few people float around at 0.1 Earth radii. This doesn't get us closer to anything at all. We can see better and further with ground-based instruments and automated disposable cameras we can toss into higher orbits.

You just attribute great heroic properties to something that is nothing more than political saber-rattling.

Assuming we solved the radiation problem, centripetal force can substitute for real gravity in the long run, and some advances in hydroponics. then go big and build a generational ship and visit a new solar system.

simplicimus:Assuming we solved the radiation problem, centripetal force can substitute for real gravity in the long run, and some advances in hydroponics. then go big and build a generational ship and visit a new solar system.

simplicimus:Assuming we solved the radiation problem, centripetal force can substitute for real gravity in the long run, and some advances in hydroponics. then go big and build a generational ship and visit a new solar system.

Of course. Easy peasy.

Oh, and Oerath? You're not an atheist. You have deep faith that somehow space is this wonderful thing that brings endless bounty to the human race.

sxacho:I live a few miles from a fountain of youth so I'm getting a kick out of this threadshiatting.

Don't drink from it, that's unnatural. Warp drives, space elevators and Mars colonies are very natural, and will be enjoyed by middle-aged people who can barely fit into airplanes.

You already have a fountain of youth in your home. It's called a refrigerator. The implications of such a device, electricity, oil-powered industrial chemically-fertilized genetically-engineered global agriculture, knowledge of nutrition and germ theory, are a fountain of youth.

OnlyM3:Brilliant .. hire a PC bunch with zero plans of building a vehicle to put them anywhere.

Money g.d. well spent.

NASA has studies galore to send astronauts places.Its also planning a system capable of sending them places....But the current political climate doesn't allow them to plan missions with destinations in mind.

/Hence the SLS "rocket to nowhere"./Contractor palms gotta get greased but there's zero ambition to do anything beyond that./Private space has been more productive, but only so far as taking over shuttle duties.

Oerath:Quantum Apostrophe: You and KellyX just better put away the crap you were fed as a kid and grow up.

Wow. What dreams of yours were smashed by the difficulties of reality? Just because shiat is hard doesn't mean you should just give up on it. Are you always this much of a colossal dick? Or did you just decide to take a break from the Politics tab to swing by and yell at people who disagree with you about space travel?

Quantum Apostrophe: bbfreak: OnlyM3: Brilliant .. hire a PC bunch with zero plans of building a vehicle to put them anywhere.Yes, if only there was a shuttle successor in the works. Oh wait.CGI != reality.And how is space being explored by going up 0.1 Earth radii?Again, I am stupid and need these obvious things explained to me.It's like saying I am exploring the ocean because I dipped by toe at the beach.

FSM knows I should know better than this. (sigh)

If we put people on Mars, perhaps the point isn't what we might find there or even the spin off technology that are derived. Maybe the point is that "we" are there.

Have you ever wondered why Sir Edmund Hillary climb Everest? Was the point of him making such an arduous journey to plant the flag of New Zealand at the top? I don't think so.

Maybe if we go to Mars, it's because we want to. Maybe, in another couple thousand years, if we leave the Solar system, it's because we want to. Maybe if we become a space faring bunch of ape descendents, it's because we want to. Or maybe we should just stop dreaming and climb back into the trees because dreaming is for schmucks and space nutters, right QA?

SewerSquirrels:Quantum Apostrophe: bbfreak: OnlyM3: Brilliant .. hire a PC bunch with zero plans of building a vehicle to put them anywhere.Yes, if only there was a shuttle successor in the works. Oh wait.CGI != reality.And how is space being explored by going up 0.1 Earth radii?Again, I am stupid and need these obvious things explained to me.It's like saying I am exploring the ocean because I dipped by toe at the beach.

FSM knows I should know better than this. (sigh)

If we put people on Mars, perhaps the point isn't what we might find there or even the spin off technology that are derived. Maybe the point is that "we" are there.

Have you ever wondered why Sir Edmund Hillary climb Everest? Was the point of him making such an arduous journey to plant the flag of New Zealand at the top? I don't think so.

Maybe if we go to Mars, it's because we want to. Maybe, in another couple thousand years, if we leave the Solar system, it's because we want to. Maybe if we become a space faring bunch of ape descendents, it's because we want to. Or maybe we should just stop dreaming and climb back into the trees because dreaming is for schmucks and space nutters, right QA?

Those trees are filled with delicious, delicious nuts. Wanting to abandon those tree nuts is what makes you a space nutter - because as much as you want it to be true, there are no nuts in space.